No maternity leave?

[Evil Genius]

I just found out that the company I work for does not have any maternity leave. You have to save your vacation, and then if you want more time off you have to work a week without pay and then short term disability will kick in and then you get paid 60% of your salary.

Now I found this out because my boss is having her baby any day now. She saved 2 of her 4 weeks vacation. Because of other medical bills, she will not be able to do the week of no pay and then get paid at 60%. So unless someone here approves for her to work at home, she will be back after 2 weeks.

Is this normal?

 

[ducklite]

I just found out that the company I work for does not have any maternity leave. You have to save your vacation, and then if you want more time off you have to work a week without pay and then short term disability will kick in and then you get paid 60% of your salary.

Now I found this out because my boss is having her baby any day now. She saved 2 of her 4 weeks vacation. Because of other medical bills, she will not be able to do the week of no pay and then get paid at 60%. So unless someone here approves for her to work at home, she will be back after 2 weeks.

Is this normal?

Not normal anywhere I've ever worked, and against the law in many states.

 

[piglet too]

I thought that it was mandatory to offer maternity leave. Maybe that is just allowing time off, but with no pay??

 

[kdibattista]

Depending on the size of your company (I think), she would be eligible for 12 weeks of Family Medical Leave but it's unpaid.

 

[Disneyland1084]

The company I work for have what they call "family" leave. I took 12 weeks off when I had my DD.

 

[Darcy03231]

Is she not getting any leave at all or not a paid leave? I believe law requires she can take up to 12 weeks, but her employer doesn't have to pay her for it. A lot of companies don't offer a paid maternity leave. I've never worked anywhere that did. I saved my vacation time and took the rest unpaid.

 

[Mom21]

When I had dd (10 years ago) I worked for the Federal Gov as an air traffic controller. There was no paid maternity nor short term disability. You used vacation, sick leave or time without pay. I always wondered when everyone talked about the great federal benefits. I was always looking for them....LOL.

 

[believe]

My company is a bit similar and we are a major corporation. They give up to 4 weeks leave, 2 if you deliver on time...less if you deliver early and more if you deliver late. After that your disability kicks in. Remember that disability is not taxed so if you are getting 60% of salary, you truly get 60% and don't claim it later. This means if you pay 30% in taxes they you are really only losing 10%.

Depending on your years of service my company does give you a percentage to supplement what you lost while on disability, this is taxed.

I made more being out on maternity than actually working

 

[Mickey Fliers]

The Family Medical Leave Act guarantees that she can take maternity leave and not lose her job, but it doesn't mean she will get paid. So, your boss is legally allowed to take 12 weeks, but if she can't afford to lose the pay, she is choosing to return to work.

 

[Villian's Wife]

but it is suprising. Most maternity leave is mandated through FMLA, but for employers who fall below certain minimums (less than 50 employees, etc.) don't have to offer FMLA and their leave policy is entirely up to them. When I went on maternity leave I got 6 weeks through Short Term Disability and it kicked in right away. (I work at a large company, but hadn't been here for a year yet so FMLA didn't apply.)

 

[hipchickie]

She is lucky she is in a state with short term disability, my maternity leave was all unpaid.

I don't think I would lie down and let them use my vaca for maternity leave though, she should look into that further.
What state is this?

 

[MushyMushy]

Sounds similar to when I had both of my kids. I had to save all my vacation and sick days, and then use disability pay. It was rough!

 

[apirateslifeforme]

My company doesn't have it either. You can technically take as much time as you want, but anything over whatever PTO you have will be unpaid. Or you can take 6 weeks short-term disability at 60% pay.

 

[RadioNate]

My former company doesn't offer a paid leave. You can take the time (FMLA 12 weeks) off unpaid or save vacation and use short term disability.

I just quit instead of dealing with it.

 

[Evil Genius]

I will tell you a funny story about maternity leave. I once worked for a company that sent out a new employee handbook every January. So we all get the handbook, and all of a sudden many of the younger marrieds were getting pregnant. Jokes about don't drink the water , blah, blah, blah. Well come to find out after the first one delivered that our handbook said that they got 6 MONTHS paid maternity leave instead of 6 WEEKS. The handbook was quickly changed and resent out. But to the company's credit, they let every single one of those women who were pregnant at the time have 6 months paid maternity leave, if they wanted it.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

I've never heard of coming back to work before getting short term disability, but when I was pregnant, there was no maternity leave other than disability, either. We could first use our sick and vacation time till they were depleted, then disability at 60% kicked in after a set period of time -- maybe two weeks. If sick and vacation time were eaten up before the two weeks, the remainder was unpaid.

Disability lasted until 6 weeks post-partum. I took 12 weeks off under FMLA, but the second 6 were unpaid.

The company I worked for right after that had a great maternity leave policy. I think it was 8 weeks at full pay for birth of a child, 2 weeks for an adoption. They also gave dads paid paternity leave of 2 weeks, whether by birth or adoption.

 

[helenabear]

Sounds normal to me. My old job my friends told me that they had to take x many vacation days and then go into disability at 70%. They were allowed 8-12 weeks off depending on the situation and what the doctor said. In most cases it was only 8 weeks and in c-sections you got 12. If you left before your due date, that started in on the 8-12 weeks even if you didn't have the baby yet. So if you left a week or 2 early, you lost that on the other end. FMLA only says that they can take the time off and not be fired for it. Very few companies I hear of do it much differently than this around here.

 

[dawn8226]

Sounds normal to me. In fact, if the company pays for her short term disability insurance it sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Why would the company give her paid time off for maternity leave, without requiring her to use vacation and sick leave? If I have cancer or get injured in a car accident and can't work the company isn't going to pay me to stay at home, that is what sick leave is for. At least with a pregnancy you generally have time to save up your leave to cover the time you will be gone.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

When I was teaching, I was given 6 weeks off paid and could take up to 12, but the second 6 wouldn't be paid unless I had saved up sick/personal days. I had only been teaching a couple of years and didn't have much accumulated, but a bunch of the other teachers each chipped in a couple of their days so that I was able to have off from Labor Day until Thanksgiving.

 

[CEDmom]

Wow, that really stinks. My company gives 12 weeks paid maternity/adoption leave and then of course you can tack on 12 weeks unpaid family leave.

When we adopted DD I stayed home with her for 7 months since I had also saved some vacation time.